Hallelujah, Carry Me Through
by TheAngryTori
Summary: Ella, a Nephilim and close friend of Castiel's, struggles to deal with his death and the ache it leaves inside her. A two-part excerpt of a larger story that will be coming soon. Castiel/OC. Title from Dave Barnes' "Carry Me Through."
1. Ache

**Ache**

Ella sat slouched, with her elbows on her knees and her hands hanging limply, on the edge of the bed in the spare room of Chuck's house. The boys knew that she was too shaken up to help them search for Lucifer and try to find out what exactly had gotten them out of harm's way, so they told Chuck to keep an eye on her while they were away. He let her stay at his house, and she promised to cook meals for him in an attempt to work off the debt that he insisted she didn't owe. She had made spaghetti for dinner tonight; and though she ate with him to assure him that she was alright, Ella spent most of the meal pushing her food around on her plate. She couldn't seem to make herself feel hungry, no matter what she did. And so she had retreated back to the spare room, sat down on the bed, and wept.

Castiel was gone. He was not coming back. Raphael had made certain of that. And all she had left of him was the tan trench coat that now lay folded over the back of a chair on the opposite side of the room. When her tears had finally given out and she could not cry anymore, she just sat and stared at the jacket and felt empty and alone. Castiel had been her constant, her anchor. Whenever humanity had let her down, whenever heaven proved corruptible, Castiel had been there to give her hope; and she had done the same for him. He had been there at her birth of pain and tears and hatred…and she had been there at his death. And even on the brink of death, he still thought to protect her.

* * *

"I'll hold them off! I'll hold them all off! Just stop Sam!" And Dean was gone. The archangel was close, and Castiel turned to look at her, really look at her. He shed his coat with a speed she had rarely seen from him, throwing it around her shoulders. Heaven did not tend to look favorably on the Nephilim, and to discover one with Castiel was sure to be an unwelcome surprise. She heard Castiel tell her something along the lines of, "This will hide your true nature," but she could hardly hear him over the archangel's cries. She grabbed his hand, desperately, terrified. He glanced at her hand, and then met her eyes for a moment that felt almost too long with the frenzy going on all around them. Suddenly, she was pulled closer to him, and he whispered something in her ear that she could hardly make out. And what she thought she heard couldn't have been what he'd said. Not Castiel, he couldn't have said _that_. But she didn't get a chance to ask him, because his fingertips were suddenly on her forehead and she knew that he didn't want her to see what was going to happen. She saw his blue eyes darken in sadness and felt her body slump lifelessly against his before the darkness fully overtook her.

When she had come to, both angels were long gone. Chuck was standing a few feet from her, wringing his hands nervously and reminding her for all the world of a terrified rabbit in a cage. She had sat up, desperately trying to clear the fog that still lingered in her mind, trying helplessly to figure out why there was blood all over the room and Castiel was not there to wake her up. When the pieces were finally able to fit together in her mind, she wouldn't let herself believe it. Castiel could not be dead! But the terrified expression on Chuck's face as he reached down to help her off of the floor was enough to silence her doubts. She let him pull her to her feet. She felt limp, like a rag doll, feeling completely detached from her body. He was dead. She drifted for a while, vaguely registering the fact that Chuck was leading her to a couch. He pushed her shoulders gently, though she never felt it, and she stumbled backwards until her rear plopped down onto the couch. Chuck may have asked if she needed anything, but she didn't hear him at all. She kept repeating the same sentence in her head; "_Castiel is dead_," over and over again, trying to make sense of it all. But there was no sense to be made. After an indeterminate period of time, something inside of her snapped and she began to weep, heavily and heartily, until her eyes were red and puffy and her head pounded from the effort.

Ella had ended up sitting there on the couch for a very long time, until Chuck ran into the living room with a toilet plunger in his hand and pulled her to her feet, telling her to stay behind him. She waited where he told her to, not having the energy to disobey, and watched wordlessly as he ran around the corner and slammed the plunger into Sam Winchester's head. She still had no grasp of her surroundings, and had no idea what Sam and Dean were doing there. A logical part of her, somewhere deep down, realized that she would have a better understanding of what was going on if she would listen to their conversation. But it seemed to take a tremendous amount of work to listen to anything but the beating of her own heart; so she continued to stand off at a distance from the brothers and the prophet, staring at an insignificant patch of carpet and feeling very small and frail in Castiel's trench coat that was much too big for her. Her ears caught Dean speak her name, and Castiel's, but the words drifted away before being processed.

And then she was being shepherded again, led away from the Winchesters by Chuck, who seemed to be yelling about Zachariah. There was a part of Ella, a wrathful corner of her soul that was exceedingly common amongst her race; that part of her wanted to face off with Zachariah. Better yet, it wanted to _rip_ his face off. It wanted to pay him back for what he had allowed to happen to Castiel. But her lethargy was even stronger, and she let herself be hidden away, reminding herself that Castiel's very last efforts had been to shield her from heaven's eyes. To throw that away now would be to make a mockery of his death, and she could not do that, not in a million lifetimes.

And then, without warning, she felt the white-hot pain of an Enochian banishing sigil being produced near her. It was not as strong as the last time she had experienced one, when she had suddenly found herself alone in a field, 30 miles away from where she had been. The sigils did not affect her in the same way as they did the angels, and the only effect of this one was the burning pain in her soul that caused her to stumble backwards for a moment, disoriented. But, if nothing else, the pain seemed to wake her from the stupor she had been drifting in and she found herself able to comprehend what was going on around her. She ran out of her hiding spot and found the Winchesters, just as they were telling Chuck that they would have to leave before Zachariah came back. Just before they left, Dean embraced her tightly and told her to stay with Chuck and to be safe. He pulled away and looked at her, and she found herself unable to meet the sadness and pity in his eyes as he added, almost as an afterthought, "It's going to be alright."

* * *

Ella couldn't remember how much time had passed since they had left, when she found herself sitting slouched on the bed in the spare room, staring at Castiel's coat. There was an incredible, heavy silence in the room; and she felt as though every passing moment without him in it was weighing down on her, trying to crush her, making it increasingly difficult to breathe. She tried to put on a brave face for Chuck, but she felt like a part of her, something essential to her being, was missing. And she would never get it back. She heard the door slowly begin to creak open, and she sighed, attempting to compose herself as she turned to see what Chuck needed from her.

But the figure that stepped hesitantly and silently into the room was not the prophet. It was Castiel, looking just as he always had. He said nothing, simply staring at her with the ghost of a smile playing about his lips. His eyes roamed the room for a moment, stopping on the chair with his coat folded across it. He stepped over to it, not making a sound, and picked up his coat, shrugging it on before turning back to face her.

"Ella," he spoke, his voice low and soft as it had always been. "I'm sorry." She felt paralyzed, afraid that if she moved or spoke he would vanish into thin air. He stepped closer and dropped to his knees in front of her, staring deeply into her eyes for a long, painful moment. And then he began to lean forward, and she closed her eyes and waited to feel his full, chapped lips on her own…

But they never came.

When she opened her eyes, she was laying awkwardly on her side, on top of the bed, her feet still firmly planted on the ground. The sky outside her window was darker than she remembered. She raised herself up to sit on the bed again, feeling a stabbing pain in her back from lying at such an unusual angle. But she forgot her discomfort when she saw the tan trench coat, still folded over the back of the chair. And she knew that he had never been there at all. She stood to her feet unsteadily, leaning over and picking up the coat herself, wrapping it around herself, burrowing deeply into it. She tried to catch his scent, the scent of a man named Jimmy mixed with the fiery, golden scent of the angel. She struggled to fight back the tears that threatened to fall, surprised to discover that she had any tears left to shed. But she was startled from this by a great commotion downstairs, followed by a pause and then Chuck's voice calling up to her, "Ella! Ella, come down here! Hurry!"

There was a tone of urgency in his voice, and she headed to the door quickly, stopping for a lingering moment to stare back at her reflection in the mirror. She looked horrible. This had not been the first time she had had a vision of her angel, and she suspected that some agent of heaven or of hell had been specially designed to torment her with them, as she always felt even more tired, worn, and alone when they were done. The bags under her eyes were pronounced and dark; she had no idea how much time had passed since Castiel's death, but she hadn't gotten any sleep since then—unless you counted the painful visions—so it must have been quite some time. Her skin was pale and waxy, and her usually frizzy, curly hair was greasy and lifeless, hanging limply around her face. Disgusted, she turned away from the mirror and hurried down the stairway, wondering what could possibly be so urgent.

_So there you have it, part one of my Castiel/OC story. Let me add a disclaimer right now: I don't own Supernatural, nor any of its characters. I do own Ella, though, as well as a Supernatural T-shirt and the Season 4 DVD set. That's all. This will probably be a two-shot, but it is only a snapshot of a much larger story that I hope to start publishing on here soon. In case you missed it, Ella is a Nephilim--her father was an angel and her mother was a human. Castiel and her father had been friends before the latter rebelled against God, and so Castiel took it upon himself to watch over her and make sure that she did not share in the fate of most Nephilim. The two are very close, and Castiel often visits her for encouragement and hope when he begins to doubt, because he knows that her faith is incredibly strong. Anyway, I have not forgotten about my other story, "My Jewel," and I promise that it isn't over yet. I just needed a break from it for a while, so that I can dive back in and make it as good as possible. I truly hope you've enjoyed this chapter, and that you will read the next part which I hope to have uploaded very soon. Please review, so I know what you think and what I need to improve on! Thanks for reading!_


	2. Relief

**Relief**

"I should warn you; she hasn't been the same since…well…you know," Chuck's voice drifted up to her from downstairs, and Ella wondered who he was talking to. The Winchesters, she supposed, and she hoped that the chaos she had heard before had not involved Chuck hitting Sam with a plunger again. She made it to the bottom of the stairs, and pulled Castiel's trench coat around her even tighter. The world felt colder without him in it, though she knew that it was probably all in her head.

"Ella?"

That was not Chuck's voice. She turned to her left, and saw the prophet standing next to the last person she was expecting to see. She stepped into the room, staring at him to see if he would go away. But he didn't; he just stood there with a small smile on his face, not taking his eyes off of her. Her eyes narrowed, and she turned away from them and sat down on the couch, covering her eyes with the palms of her shaking hands. "Screw you."

Her words wiped the smile off of his face, and replaced it with confusion as Chuck stammered, "Uh, wait…Wh-what?"

She stood quickly and rounded on them both, pointing an accusing finger. "Who are you? _What_ are you? Castiel is _dead_! And I am absolutely sick of these visions, or dreams, or nightmares, or whatever the _hell_ they are! You think I don't miss him already without you reminding me of his face, and his voice, and everything about him?" The specter with Castiel's face opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. "I have had enough! Stop torturing me! I just want to forget him. I just want to be able to sleep without his face in front of me, taunting me. _Leave me alone_!" She turned on her heel and started to stalk away back up the stairs, but she was stopped by a low, rough voice from behind her.

"Chel'ah!" He yelled, stopping her in her tracks. Castiel never used her real name; he knew better than that. There was no one other than Castiel, on this earth or below it, who would know her name; and no one above the earth who would dare speak it but him. So she stopped, and turned to look at him, her eyes wide and fearful. At seeing her frightened expression, his gaze softened from the stony look he had been giving her. He closed the distance between them almost impossibly fast. "Ella," he whispered, his voice low and comforting, "it's really me." He reached out to touch her, but she drew back from his hand. Her reaction surprised him, and he narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to the side in confusion. "What has happened to you?"

She disregarded his question. "You're dead. Castiel, you're dead!" She was on the verge of tears, and she hated to be seen like this but she was terrified of looking away, in case he might disappear.

"I know. I was dead. But I'm alive again."

"How?" she breathed. He only shook his head, his voice dropping even lower.

"I don't know. But I needed to see you…" his voice trailed off as he looked her in the eye. He hesitantly reached out and touched her arm, and she didn't pull away this time. It felt like Castiel's hand was really touching her—his hands were always warm, as though there was a fire constantly burning beneath his skin—but she was afraid to get her hopes up again, as she always did with the visions of him. But then his other hand found its way to her waist, and that was harder to deny. He stepped close, so close that she could feel the heat coming from his body, and she unconsciously drew nearer to him, hoping to feel warmer even if this was just a dream. His hand was surprisingly tender and gentle on her waist, though she knew that he had never held any woman but her. He began to lean in towards her, and she closed her eyes, waiting for the dream to be over and for him to be gone again.

But this must not be a dream, and Ella nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt his full lips cover hers. Her heart must have stopped for a moment when she realized that not only was Castiel alive again and there to see her, he was kissing her. Hesitantly, and with a trembling hand, she reached out and pressed her palm against his chest, trying to ensure that he was really there. She could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and she realized that hers was racing just as quickly. She wrapped her free arm around his neck, pulling him close and deepening the kiss suddenly. She felt him inhale sharply; she was well aware that he had never kissed anyone before, and he had no idea what he was doing. But she knew that she was not likely to get the chance to kiss him ever again—she still had not fully discounted the theory that this might be a dream—so she was going to make it worth the potential damnation for kissing an angel of the Lord. And then, after a moment, he surprised her by wrapping both arms around her waist, holding her tight and close to him, returning the kiss with increasing passion.

She pulled away from him slowly and unwillingly but needing to breathe, and only then remembered that Chuck was still in the same room. She glanced around Castiel at him, saw him standing there awkwardly and nervously and very red in the face, and realized that this really had just happened. She turned her gaze back to Castiel quickly, eyes wide and searching; but instead of meeting her gaze, he let her go and rounded on the prophet.

"Not a word of this. To _anyone_, Chuck." His voice was low and menacing, and the skittish prophet was clearly frightened of him. "If anyone learns of this—if _anything_ happens to her—I am coming after you. Do you understand?" Chuck nodded frantically, and practically ran out of the room, looking as if he might need to change his pants. With a sigh, the angel slowly turned back to Ella, who was chuckling softly.

"You shouldn't scare him so, Castay. It can't be good for him." She knew him well enough to anticipate his coming reaction, and had said it to cheer him up, but it didn't quite work. He simply looked forlornly down at the ground, and spoke to her in a voice just above a breath.

"I should not have done that. You cannot imagine the danger I have put you in. If…Lucifer finds out how important you are to me…" His voice broke with hurt, and he did not complete his sentence. There was no need.

"You know that I can take care of myself, Castay," she whispered, stepping in to him, pleased at the fact that his arms wrapped themselves around her almost immediately. "And besides, what is big bad Lucifer going to want with a lowly angel like you? I'm teasing," she added, unsure if he would pick up on the tone of her voice or the small smile on her face. He finally turned to look at her, an amused light dancing in his eyes.

"I am not so lowly as to be ignored. I have more strength than that, you know." She smiled, satisfied now that he was done moping.

"Then you will be strong enough to protect me, if anything were to happen. But that is only if anything does happen. The Father will protect us, Castiel, unless this is not His will. You must still have faith in that, at least." He nodded, brushing his nose against her skin and sending chills down her spine. "Good. Now, then," she said in a matter-of-fact tone, stepping away from him and settling down on the couch again, "tell me what happened. Where were you? And how are you _back_?"

He sat down on the couch next to her and took her hand in both of his. There wasn't much he could tell her, just that he remembered tremendous pain from battling the archangel, and then darkness. And then, suddenly, he awoke somewhere in the middle of the desert and he knew that Jimmy was gone. He told her that he had first gone to see the Winchesters, had found them being tormented by Zachariah, and had killed two of his brothers in order to save Sam and Dean. He only mentioned that in passing, and she knew that it was tormenting him, though he would not admit it. And then he had come to find her.

"I…hoped that you would have missed me," he told her softly, "but not this much." He touched her face cautiously, as though afraid he would hurt her. "How long has it been since you have slept?"

She tried to brush aside the question. "You know that I don't need much sleep, Castay. I'm fine."

He ignored her. "Have you slept at all since I died?"

She was unable to meet his eyes as she answered softly, "No… Not really." She could feel his gaze weighing heavily on her, and she turned away from him. "I tried. I really did. But I kept having these…visions, or dreams, or something. Every time I closed my eyes, there you were. But every time I tried to touch you, you would vanish, and I would wake up again, knowing that you had never actually been there. Each time, it hurt more and more, even more than losing you the first time. Because I would start to hope that you were really back. The disappointment was killing me; so I stopped trying to sleep."

"That's why you didn't believe that it was me?" he asked, and she glanced at him, moved by the concern in his eyes as he tilted his head to the side. She nodded gently, and then took a great breath and let her words flow out in a sudden rush.

"Please don't leave me. I mean, I know that you need to go. I can see it in your eyes. You need to go and see the Winchesters again, to try to find out how all of you are safe. You need to try to find God; who else could have brought you back to life? I know that you need to do these things, but can't they at least wait until morning? Please? Please, just stay with me for a little while longer," she begged, and his whole countenance softened as she spoke.

"I will stay, if you promise to sleep tonight."

"I don't want to sleep the whole time you're here! It's been days, maybe weeks, since you died. I am not going to waste what little time I have with you!"

"You need to rest, Ella," he said with a hint of finality in his voice, and she shivered when he spoke her name.

"Do you promise to still be here when I wake up?" she pleaded, ashamed at how pathetic she sounded. But he smiled at her anyway, and brushed his lips against her forehead.

"I promise. I will not leave you."

She sighed, nodded, and stood, pulling him up with her. He still held her hand tightly, and she led the way back upstairs to the spare bedroom Chuck was letting her stay in. She shed the trench coat that was still draped over her shoulders, and handed it to him—which he took with a smile—and then climbed into the bed, feeling like her limbs were made of lead. Castiel surprised her by lying down beside her, and pulling the covers over both of them, and wrapping his arms around her tightly. This was all too perfect; suddenly she was shaken by doubt, fearing that her senses were deceiving her and that he really wasn't there. She grabbed at his suit jacket, burying her face in his chest.

"You won't leave me?" Her voice came out in a whisper, and she was surprised that he even heard her question, muffled in his clothes.

"No, I won't leave. I will be right here when you wake up."

"Promise?"

He chuckled, and she felt it rumble in his chest. He put a hand under her chin, and made her look at him. His lips met hers again, tenderly, and she noted how much more confident he seemed this time—though she was trembling with nervousness, fear, and the thrill of doing something she knew she should not do. He pulled away, looking into her eyes.

"I promise, Ella."

"I believe you, Castiel," she whispered, meaning it with her whole heart.

He smiled down at her, and brushed some hair out of her face softly. "Would you like me to help you sleep? I can make sure that you do not dream tonight."

She smiled. "I would like that very much, Castay."

He brushed her hair aside again, and held his fingers up to her forehead. "Good night, Ella."

Tomorrow, when she woke up, he would be there. But she knew he would not be there for very long. He would stay long enough for her to really believe that he was alive again; but then he would be off to find the Winchesters. And then he would be off in search of God, and she would probably not see him again for a long time. She would have to leave Chuck's house soon. She couldn't stay there for much longer. She would also have to shower at some point—preferably soon. Perhaps she would go with Castiel to see Sam and Dean. She liked them a lot. He probably would not like that idea. He probably would think it would be too dangerous for her. They might argue, even.

But all of that could wait until tomorrow. For now, Castiel was back, and he was going to stay with her. And she was going to sleep tonight, wrapped up in his arms. And that was more than enough.

"Good night, Castiel."

_Alright, so there's part two! Sorry for the heavy amounts of fluff, but Valentine's Day is coming up and I've been watching a ton of chick flicks lately. Here's a disclaimer so I don't get sued: I don't own Supernatural, nor any of its characters. I do own Ella, though, as well as a Supernatural T-shirt and the Season 4 DVD set. That's all. This is the end of this particular story, but it is only a snapshot of a much larger story that I am considering publishing on here soon. In case you missed it, Ella is a Nephilim--her father was an angel and her mother was a human. Castiel and her father had been friends before the latter rebelled against God, and so Castiel took it upon himself to watch over her and make sure that she did not share in the fate of most Nephilim. The two are very close, and Castiel often visited her for encouragement and hope when he began to doubt, because he knows that her faith is incredibly strong. Her name, Chel'ah, is a Hebrew word that basically means, "depraved one." I hope that is explanation enough for why she hates it so much. Also, she has a nickname for him, too. She calls him Castay. I don't think it has any meaning, I just think it's cute. Anyway, I have not forgotten about my other story, "My Jewel," and I promise that it isn't over yet. I just needed a break from it for a while, so that I can dive back in and make it as good as possible. I truly hope you've enjoyed this chapter; I had a great time writing it! Please review, so I know what you think and what I need to improve on! I'm not really above begging; I. Need. Reviews. I have no idea if this story is any good, or if it is even worth continuing, since I only received two short reviews on the last chapter. So please, take the time to let me know what you think, especially if you loved it. Especially if you hated it! I just want to know!_

_Can I tell you a secret? Two-shot or no, this is the first story that I can remember that I have ever finished. I know, right? I usually get too distracted to finish anything, which is why it took so long for me to publish this chapter. Maybe I should just stick with short stories, so that I'm actually motivated enough to finish them! Anyway...Thanks for reading, and I really do hope you enjoyed it!_


End file.
